Apostle Johnson Suleman has weighed in on one of Nigeria’s most talked-about online voices, and his take on GehGeh is both a compliment and a caveat delivered in the same breath.
During a church address, the cleric said he watches GehGeh’s videos and finds genuine value in what the Delta-born social media figure teaches about money.
But he made a distinction that is likely to spark as much conversation as GehGeh himself usually does. According to Suleman, the financial principles GehGeh preaches are best suited to people who are still working their way up, those who haven’t yet arrived at the level where the rules of money start to look very different.
He prefaced his comments by noting that he tends to be wary of people who talk negatively about women, a pointed aside given that GehGeh has built much of his brand around advising men to be guarded in their dealings with women, a position that has earned him a fiercely loyal male following and an equally vocal group of critics who accuse him of promoting a warped view of relationships.
When it came to the money side of things, Suleman’s argument was straightforward: financial wisdom isn’t one-size-fits-all. “That guy gives good advice for poor people,” he said, before laying out his reasoning.
GehGeh’s typical counsel- things like resisting the urge to spend money on transport fare for people who ask you for help- makes sense when you are still climbing.
But Suleman argued that once you reach a certain level of blessing, that mindset no longer fits. “There’s a level you get to, somebody might be telling you if somebody asks for transport, don’t give transport fare. No, you don’t give transport, you buy cars.”
His point, stripped back, is about context and scale. The discipline that keeps someone financially afloat while they build wealth is not the same thinking that governs someone already financially established. “If you’re already standing and God has blessed you, you can’t reason the same way because you’re no longer thinking of transport fare; you’re thinking of cars.”
It’s worth understanding who GehGeh is to fully appreciate why Suleman’s take carries weight. Emmanuel Obruste, who grew up poor in Warri, Delta State, and lost his father while in university, built his entire brand on teaching young Nigerians, particularly young men, how to protect their money, avoid impulse spending, and prioritise assets over appearances.
His “University of Wisdom and Understanding,” a daily online school he launched in 2025, has at various points attracted over 177,000 concurrent viewers on TikTok, making him one of the most-watched digital voices on personal finance in Nigeria.
His advice resonates because it speaks directly to people navigating real financial precarity in a country where economic pressure is constant, and the temptation to spend for social validation is everywhere.
Which is exactly Suleman’s point. GehGeh’s audience and his message are perfectly matched. The problem, if there is one, is when people at different financial levels try to apply advice that was never designed for where they currently stand.
The boundaries that protect you during struggle can become limitations once you’ve broken through them.
It’s a nuanced read, and perhaps a more generous one than GehGeh usually receives from those who disagree with him. Suleman didn’t dismiss him.
He contextualised him and, in doing so, offered something that the online discourse around GehGeh rarely makes room for: the idea that his advice can be useful yet incomplete, depending entirely on who is listening.
